Garnett murmured a vague assent, and she went on without the least appearance of resenting his curiosity:  “It all came about so fortunately.  Only fancy, just the week they met I got a little legacy from an aunt in Elmira—­a good soul I hadn’t seen or heard of for years.  I suppose I ought to have put on mourning for her, by the way, but it would have eaten up a good bit of the legacy, and I really needed it all for poor Hermy.  Oh, it’s not a fortune, you understand—­but the young man is madly in love, and has always had his own way, so after a lot of correspondence it’s been arranged.  They saw Hermy this morning, and they’re enchanted.”

“And the marriage takes place very soon?”

“Yes, in a few weeks, here.  His mother is an invalid and couldn’t have gone to England.  Besides, the French don’t travel.  And as Hermy has become a Catholic—­”

“Already?”

Mrs. Newell stared.  “It doesn’t take long.  And it suits Hermy exactly—­she can go to church so much oftener.  So I thought,” Mrs. Newell concluded with dignity, “that a wedding at Saint Philippe du Roule would be the most suitable thing at this season.”

“Dear me,” said Garnett, “I am left breathless—­I can’t catch up with you.  I suppose even the day is fixed, though Miss Hermione doesn’t mention it,” and he indicated the official announcement in his hand.

Mrs. Newell laughed.  “Hermy had to write that herself, poor dear, because my scrawl’s too hideous—­but I dictated it.  No, the day isn’t fixed—­that’s why I sent for you.”  There was a splendid directness about Mrs. Newell.  It would never have occurred to her to pretend to Garnett that she had summoned him for the pleasure of his company.

“You’ve sent for me—­to fix the day?” he enquired humourously.

“To remove the last obstacle to its being fixed.”

“I?  What kind of an obstacle could I have the least effect on?”

Mrs. Newell met his banter with a look which quelled it.  “I want you to find her father.”

“Her father?  Miss Hermione’s—?”

“My husband, of course.  I suppose you know he’s living.”

Garnett blushed at his own clumsiness.  “I—­yes—­that is, I really knew nothing—­” he stammered, feeling that each word added to it.  If Hermione was unnoticeable, Mr. Newell had always been invisible.  The young man had never so much as given him a thought, and it was awkward to come on him so suddenly at a turn of the talk.

“Well, he is—­living here in Paris,” said Mrs. Newell, with a note of asperity which seemed to imply that her friend might have taken the trouble to post himself on this point.

“In Paris?  But in that case isn’t it quite simple—?”

“To find him?  I daresay it won’t be difficult, though he is rather mysterious.  But the point is that I can’t go to him—­and that if I write to him he won’t answer.”

“Ah,” said Garnett thoughtfully.